Marguerite Nyandwi

Rutana Province, Burundi • 2000s

Marguerite Nyandwi lay in a hospital bed with an IV needle in her arm in October 1993. She had malaria and her head throbbed with fever. A group of her friends from high school appeared beside her, but unlike a usual visit, they lifted her upright in bed and set her feet on the floor. Someone detached the IV, someone else tipped a glass of milk to her lips. “You have to come,” they said in thick voices. The drugs had dulled Marguerite’s hearing.

She half-walked, was half-pulled back to school as her friends explained what happened. The president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, an ethnic Hutu, had been assassinated.